This is a great question, and I did a little research on both. (I LOVE both potatoes and rice!) So here goes...

Potatoes, a carbohydrate, has 600-800 mgs. of Potassium, 40% more than a banana. (For a 5.3 ounce potato) It also has 45% of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C. Also, a potato had the following trace minerals that a body needs.
Thiamin, riboflavin, folate, magnesium, phosphorous, iron and zinc. It contains 100 calories and has no fat. When you eat it with the skin on, you add 3 grams of fiber. Of course, these figures are for one 4.3 ounce potato that is uncooked and has had nothing added. Personally, a baked potato with low calorie butter or margarine is my "I died and went to Heaven" meal.
Now rice... another carbohydrate, the question was for regular white rice. For one half cup of COOKED white rice, it has 103 calories, a trace of fat, (0.2 grams)no sodium, (salt) and no gluten.
However, plain white rice has generally been "bleached" )No, I am not saying it's run through a Clorox bath...) but to make it white, they do a bunch of stuff to the normally tannish brown rice (including running it through a bath of sugars) before it ever sees the consumer. Brown rice, is pretty much the same except it contains 0.9 per 100 grams of. (Again, this is for a half a cup of cooked rice.) Brown rice has all of the same nutrition as white rice except for zinc, and brown rice contains niacin. Also, the fiber content is higher too. There are many states in the US that grow rice, Arkansaw is number one, with California behind it as #2. (When they imported the Chinese in the 1800's to work on the railroads, California started growing rice, and they still do.) Back then, the best part about rice was you could bag it up and take it with you, where a potato would rot and become inedible in a short amount of time. While I am partial to rice, I prefer "sticky rice", a staple in Japanese cooking. Many of the brown rices have a unique flavor.
As with the potatoes, the calories increase with what you add to it. Potatoes just beg to be buttered, sour creamed, cheesed and mashed. (I never understood twice baked potatoes though... didn't it bake right the first time?) Rice, on the other hand, is usually a part of other ingrediants, and with it, you have to take into account what you make with the rice. Myself, I would turn it into 'sticky rice', toss some raw tuna on it, and eat til I burst!

Rice... however, not white rice.... it's been proccessed to death. IF the only choice is White Rice or a potato, I would choose the potato... and leave the skin on. Be mindful what you toss on it. If you can't eat the potato without cheese, sour cream or butter, eat the rice.

StoneWoman wrote:Rice... however, not white rice.... it's been proccessed to death. IF the only choice is White Rice or a potato, I would choose the potato... and leave the skin on. Be mindful what you toss on it. If you can't eat the potato without cheese, sour cream or butter, eat the rice.

The potatoe skin isn't always clean and brownish. I have usually have to cut them off.

thats cos china is ideal for the production of rice and has produced it for many centuries and so readily available whereas its not as ideal to potatoe growth and isn't produce as much there, and so rice is cheaper as theres more of it